For the past six months I have been working with an inspiring young couple who live in Sydney. Let’s call them Linda & Peter (names withheld for privacy).  Linda first approached me late last year and wanted to know if ihatebudgets could help her get out of, as she put it “her financial nightmare”.

 Linda’s debts were certainly quite large and, as Linda explained, she had resorted to re-financing her home loan which provided a temporary fix but she had very quickly slid back into arrears with her mortgage repayments.

 Then the “saviour” arrived - no not me but a pre-approved credit card application for $25,000 - just sign and send it back. Wow, thought Linda, I’m saved. Now I know you are sitting there reading, thinking, how could you be so silly? Well, in desperate times, we do desperate things and of course once this had been used up, she still had to pay it back - Banks are funny like that!

As Linda put it to me when we sat down over a coffee she had a problem and she had been in denial about it.

 When I asked her what her husband thought, she confided that she hadn’t told him as he let her manage all the finances - he didn’t know the extent of their debt and how this poor woman through good intent had been going through hell, trying not to worry him.  It gets worse before it gets better. The next thing I know is they have put the house on the market to get out of their problem - by this time Linda had told her husband and, all credit to him, Peter, though understandably not happy, loves his wife and was prepared to work through the problem together. 

 I had Linda draw up a budget with Peter and put in everything, warts & all.  After going through their expenditure which I had to look at several times, because I kept thinking to myself, this is too simple, I’m missing something, but it just kept hitting me in the face - their phone bills, home and mobile were their next biggest expense after food and mortgage.  Linda had become a depressed shopper, no not in buying things, but by talking to friends & relatives - this was her release from the “financial nightmare”, her feel good fix to help her stop thinking about her problems. Once we had uncovered this, Linda disciplined herself in the way she used her phone. They have gone from overspending to now being able to save some money, but more importantly their house - no need to sell it now.

 Linda took the time to draw up a realistic budget and apply a little discipline and her husband is now involved in helping her with the finances. As the old saying goes “Linda could not see the forest for the trees”.

 The points that I took from the meeting and working with this couple are:

> Be honest with yourself regarding your debt

> Reassess your spending (Yes! Do a Budget)

> Set some goals and review, review, review, and if you have a partner involve them so that you have a common goal.